Magic Touch Nails — Local services in Vancouver

Walked in after my waxing appt next door a few weeks ago. Was gonna do my own nails before my vacation but was in an impulsive treat-myself mood.

A lady in her 50s did my nails. She asked what shape (I told her squoval, and explained that it's square with round edges). My natural nails were already in that shape except some were long and some were short. She said she knows, but proceeded to cut and file my nails ROUND (not squoval) - see picture. Most observant nail techs know customers tend to keep the same nail shape so I couldn't even attribute this error to a language barrier.

Told her I wanted silver chrome but pink chrome on the ring fingers and she went to go get the colors based on the nail swatches I picked. She brought the chrome powder and a purple powder, along with white polish. She starts painting my nails white (base for the chrome). After the white gel, she applied top coat, cured, rubbed the chrome powder on and it wouldn't stick. She kept trying. Eventually she said she cured for too long and that it was different in the summer? After wiping it off and reapplying 2-3x, she was starting to figure out the chrome (she cured the top coat for a shorter time and the chrome powder started sticking).

Then she got to my ring finger and rubbed just the purple powder on, it looked really weird and nothing like the swatch. She asked the guy (who I presumed to be the owner or manager), who told her to mix the chrome powder with the purple powder to get pink chrome. I'm getting worried at this point because she really didn't know what she was doing.

She continued on. Ideally I would like a more efficient service because I decided to get my nails done in a salon for a reason. But if it takes time but the final product looks good then I can get behind that. NOPE. I quality checked each nail and told her I can see the white under the chrome on 4 of the nails. The chrome was uneven. To be honest none of the 10 nails looked good close up. Probably looked okay far away, but definitely rough up close, does NOT look like it was done professionally. She kept trying to fix it but, it didn't get much better. Then I noticed the two pink chrome nails weren't the same shade and they look nothing like the swatch. I kept having to ask her to fix it. She tried, but she lacked the skills so she eventually gave up.

If I was gonna pay money to get my nails done I expect even application, nice edges, and an overall neat work. I sat there contemplating life and suddenly the idea of doing my own nails for 3 hours is better than this.

After asking her to fix so many nails which she couldn't do, I told her... If you can't do chrome maybe I'll pick a different cream color. Then I thought to myself, why? I lost faith in her skills at this point. Then I asked her to take everything off. She asked, you want white? Thinking she can just remove the chrome, give me top coat, and be done. I told her I never wanted white I wanted chrome but you can't do it. The fact that she offered a cop-out solution made it worse.

It was awkward as heck sitting there while she removed everything. AND she overfiled my pinky with the e-file. I said OW and told her she filed too much. She didn't say sorry. Then I left. I wasted 75 minutes of my life, went home with THIN SHORT NAILS THAT WERE ROUND (NOT SQUOVAL). I stopped doing my nails for a long time so they were quite strong. Not anymore. My nails were so thin and sensitive after she overfiled them. The next day I gave myself a gel manicure, which makes my my nails thicker and a bit stronger. The following days I still broke so many nails because they were so brittle from her overfiling.

Won't be back. The only magic she did on my nails was filing them the wrong shape and making them...

If I could give a zero star review - I would!

Short version: do not even consider going there!

Long version: I've had nails done (a variation of nails, like overlay, acrylic, gel, shellac) for many years. Its becoming too much of a hassle to do it on my time off, so I decided to try this salon, since it is across the street from my work. It was a complete fail. First of all the staff is not friendly or inviting, second of all I paid $70 for the worst set of nails, third of all the shellac part of it lifted off on 3 nails within 24 hours! 24 hours! It's ridiculous! I came back the following day to fix it. They didn't look happy but they fixed it. Guess what? It lifted off again the following day, and on top of it, other nails started lifting off and peeling! I hate that for my own $70 that I have to work my @ss off, I couldn't even get an apology and get someone to properly fix it. Then a week later the overlay part started peeling off. I've never experienced anything like that. They use cheap crappy product and if you read reviews below sounds like I'm not the only one with this problem. I will never go there again and I do not recommend this salon to anyone. While there, one lady had her nail broken which they had to fix, like cmon, it's not...

Do not recommend - In fact, I urge you to go elsewhere..

From my experience it appears these ladies are not skilled, and do not care about learning proper techniques or maintaining hygienic standards. I'm not quite sure how they can afford to keep operating in the downtown core.

Honestly, part of this is on me because I should have left before she started working on my hands. I could see the tools were all dirty, and for those of you who aren't aware, you can get serious infections/injuries from unsanitized tools (those tools come in contact with stranger's dead skin on a daily basis). This is the biggest red flag a nail salon can expose.

Anyway, they do not have the capacity to do gel extension removals - which they should've advised of before booking me in. I came in for just a removal and I was there for an hour. The lady used 3 different drill bits, a cuticle pusher (held incorrectly), and acetone to try and remove them. And yes, the drilling burned as she was going too far into the nail bed. I really should have spoken up and left. And then she kind of forgot about me after putting clear polish on (to make it look better) and I had to get her coworker to call her over so I could finally pay and get...